Coaching vs Mentoring – which one to choose?

The coaching industry has boomed in recent years with more people than ever calling themselves a ‘coach’.?Both mentoring and coaching can be useful in the right context – its worth choosing the right one for you and the stage your business is at right now.?First, lets look at some definitions:

Mentoring – A mentor is someone who shares their knowledge, skills and experience to help someone develop and grow.

Coaching – A coach is someone who provides guidance to a client to work towards goals and helps them reach their full potential.

Looking at these two definitions in turn, it still isn’t really clear what the difference is.?I think the main difference is mentoring is directive, while coaching in non-directive.?What does this mean in practice??Well, in mentor meetings it is likely the mentor does most of the talking, directing actions and essentially ‘telling’ rather than listening.?A coach, however, is more likely to be asking open questions, getting the coachee to discover the right actions and the right path for them, then eliciting actions and holding the coachee accountable to those actions.

Mentoring is very often a longer relationship and generally lasts as long as the person’s career.?Coaching too can be long term, but the conversations are far more directed with specific actions and goals.

No qualifications are required for either, but coaches tend to have done some formal training and can be accredited to certain bodies.?For example, I have had formal coach training in the form of theory and supervised sessions, accumulating and building coaching hours that then get reviewed and accredited.

As I mentioned, mentoring is more directive with the mentor sharing their knowledge directly with the individual.?A coaching relationship is less directive, meaning the coach poses questions in order to allow the coachee space to reflect and grow in confidence, getting to some next step actions and making sure these are followed up on.?This leads to the coachee having the confidence they can repeat the steps in the future as they now have first-hand experience.

Mentoring is mainly development driven, this means the coachee largely drives the relationship and the goals associated.?Coaching is performance driven and encourages coachees to do the absolute best in everything, including their day-to-day roles and larger business goals.

How to choose between a coach or a mentor?

1.?????Consider your goals.?A coach will help you work towards specific goals by putting in a step by step plan and hold you accountable to your actions.

2.?????Choose your desired guidance level.??Coach will provide a more hands on approach by doing things like setting you homework, checking you are on track and holding you accountable.

3.?????Consider the relationship.?A coaching relationship is results bound.?If you want specific results in a designated time frame, coaching is probably more likely to be what you are looking for.

Which is best for you??I don’t know.?But hopefully now you are more equipped to make a decision.?If you want to have a more in depth chat about what coaching with guaranteed results looks like, drop me a DM.